In June, 1702, I, Lemuel Gulliver, ship’s surgeon, went on board the merchant-vessel Adventure bound for Surat. Rounding the Cape of Good Hope, we had a good voyage through the Straits of Madagascar. But just south of the equator a violent gale sprang up, and continuing for twenty days, drove us before it a little to the east of the Spice Islands.

Suddenly, the wind dropped and there was a perfect calm. I was delighted, but the captain, who knew those seas, bade us all prepare for a storm. The next day, just as he had said, a wind called the Southern monsoon set in. We reefed the best we could, but it was a very fierce storm, and the waves broke strange and dangerous. We let our topmast stand, and the ship scudded before the sea.

Thus we were carried about five hundred leagues to the east, so that the oldest sailor aboard could not tell in what part of the world we were. Our provisions held out well, our ship was stanch, and our crew all in good health, but we were in great distress for lack of water.

The wind moderated, and the next day a boy on the topmast discovered land. Soon, we were in full view of an island or continent, on the south side of which was a neck of land jutting out into the sea, and a creek too shallow to hold our ship. We cast anchor about a league away, and our captain sent a dozen of his men well armed, in the long-boat, with buckets for water. I asked his leave to go with them, to see the country and make what discoveries I could.

When we came to land, we saw no river or spring, nor any sign of inhabitants. Our men wandered on the shore, hoping to find some fresh water near the sea, and I walked alone on the other side where the country was all barren and rocky. Beginning to be tired, I started back toward the shore, only to see our men already in the boat rowing for dear life to the ship.

I was going to holloa to them when I saw a huge creature walking after them in the sea. The water was hardly to his knees, and he took prodigious strides. But our men had the start of him by half a league, and as the sea thereabout is full of sharp-pointed rocks, the monster was not able to overtake the boat. This I was told afterward, for I dared not stay to see, but ran as fast as I could the way I first went, and climbed up a steep hill which gave me a view of the country. I found it fully cultivated; but what first surprised me was the length of the grass, which in the hay-fields was about twenty feet high.

I came upon a high road, for so I took it to be, though it served the inhabitants only as a footpath through a field of barley. Here I walked for an hour but could see little, for the grain rose forty feet into the air on either side. Coming at last to the end of the field, I found it fenced in with a hedge over one hundred feet high, and a stile impossible for me to climb.

I was trying to find a gap in the hedge when I saw a man as tall as a church-steeple approaching the stile. Hiding myself in the grain, I heard him call, but the noise was so high in the air that at first I thought it was thunder. Immediately seven monsters, each with a reaping-hook as big as six scythes, came to reap the grain in the field where I was.

I kept as far from them as I could, but I could move only with great difficulty, for the barley-stalks were sometimes less than a foot apart so that I could hardly squeeze between them. However, I struggled on till I came to a part of the field where the grain had been beaten down by the rain and wind. Here it was impossible to advance a step, for the stalks were so interwoven that I could not creep between, and the beards of the barley were so strong and pointed that they pierced through my clothes. At the same time, hearing the reapers close behind me, I threw myself down between two ridges, overcome with despair.

The next moment I saw an immense foot not ten yards away and the blinding gleam of a great reaping-hook above my head. I screamed as loud as fear could make me. The huge reaper stopped short, and looking about on the ground for some time, finally spied me. He considered a while as if he were planning how he could pick up a small, dangerous animal so that it could neither bite nor scratch him. At last he ventured to take me up by the middle, between his forefinger and thumb, and held me within three yards of his eyes.

Good fortune gave me so much presence of mind that I resolved not to struggle as he held me in the air, about sixty feet from the ground, although he grievously pinched my sides. Instead, I raised my eyes and clasped my hands, speaking some words in a humble tone and groaning to let him know how cruelly I was hurt by the pressure of his thumb and finger. He seemed to understand, for putting me gently into his pocket, he ran along with me to his master, the farmer I had first seen.

The farmer blew my hair aside to get a better view of my face, and then placed me softly on the ground on all-fours. But I got immediately up, and walked slowly backward and forward. Pulling off my hat, I made a low bow to the farmer. I fell on my knees, and spoke several words as loud as I could. I took a purse of gold out of my pocket and humbly presented it to him. He received it on the palm of his hand, and turned it with the point of a pin, but could make nothing of it.

He spoke to me, but the sound of his voice pierced my ears like that of a water-mill. I answered as loud as I could in several languages, and he laid his ear within two yards of me, but all in vain. We could not understand each other.

He then sent his servant to work, and taking out his handkerchief, spread it on his left hand, which he placed flat on the ground with the palm upwards. He beckoned to me to step up on it, which I could easily do, as it was not more than a foot thick. Wrapping me up in the handkerchief, he carried me home to his house. There he showed me to his wife; but she screamed and ran back as if I had been a spider. However, when she had seen how gentle I was, and how well I obeyed the signs her husband made, she became extremely tender to me.

It was dinner-time, and the servant brought in a dish of meat about twenty-four feet across. At the table were the farmer, his wife, and three children. The farmer placed me at some distance from him on the table, which was thirty feet high from the floor. I was in a terrible fright, and kept as far as I could from the edge, for fear of falling. The wife minced a bit of meat and crumbled some bread, placing it before me on a plate. I made her a low bow, took out my knife and fork, and began to eat, which gave them much delight.

Then the master beckoned me to come to his plate; but as I walked on the table, I stumbled against a crust and fell flat on my face. I got up immediately, and finding the good people greatly concerned, I waved my hat over my head, giving three huzzas to show that I had received no hurt. Just then I heard a noise like that of a dozen stocking-weavers at work, and turning my head, found it to be the purring of a cat three times as big as an ox. The fierce look of this creature, which had jumped into the mistress’s lap, altogether discomposed me, although I stood at the further end of the table, fifty feet away. I was less afraid of the dogs, one of which was a mastiff as big as four elephants.

But my chief danger came from another quarter. When dinner was almost over, a nurse came in with a child a year old in her arms, who immediately spied me and began a squall that you might have heard across London, to get me for a plaything. The mother put me towards the baby, who suddenly seized me by the middle, and put my head into his mouth, where I roared so loud that he was frightened and let me drop. And I should certainly have broken my neck if the nurse had not held her apron under me. To quiet the baby, the nurse shook a rattle filled with rocks as big as cobblestones, which was fastened by a cable to the child’s waist.

But the one of all the family whom I liked the best was a little girl nine years old, who became from the first my chief protector. It was she who fixed up a bed for me in her doll’s cradle, and it was she who taught me the language. When I pointed out anything, she told me the name of it in the giants’ tongue, so that in a few days I was able to call for whatever I wished. She was very good-natured, and not above forty feet high, being small for her age. She gave me the name of Grildrig, meaning mannikin. I called her my Glumdalclitch, or little nurse.

It soon began to be known in the neighborhood that my master had found in the field a tiny animal shaped exactly like a human creature, which seemed to speak in a little language of its own, had already learned several words of theirs, walked erect on two legs, was tame and gentle, and would come when it was called. Another farmer, who lived near by, came on a visit on purpose to find out the truth of this story. Being old and dim-sighted, he put on his spectacles to see me better, at which I could not help laughing, for his eyes looked like the full moon shining into a room at two windows. This man was thought to be a great miser, and to my way of thinking, he well deserved it, for the first thing he did after seeing me was to advise my master to show me as a sight in the next town.

Accordingly, the next market-day, my master mounted his daughter, my little nurse, on a pillion behind him, and rode with me to town. I was carried in a wooden box, closed on every side, with a little door to let me in and out, and a few gimlet holes to give me air. Although Glumdalclitch had put her doll’s quilt in the box for me to lie down on, I was nevertheless terribly shaken up by this journey of only half an hour. The horse went about forty feet at every step, and trotted so high that the motion was like the rising and falling of a ship in a great storm.

My master alighted at an inn; and having hired the crier to give notice of me through the town, placed me on a table in the largest room of the inn, which was about three hundred feet square. My little nurse stood on a low stool close by, to take care of me and direct what I should do. To prevent danger, my master would allow but thirty people at a time to see me, and set benches round the table so as to put me out of everybody’s reach.

I walked about on the table as Glumdalclitch commanded; she asked me questions, and I answered them as loud as I could. I paid my humble respects to the audience, and said they were welcome. I took up a thimble filled with wine, and drank their health. I flourished my sword, and exercised with part of a straw as a pike. That day I was shown to twelve sets of people, and as often forced to go through the same antics till I was half-dead with weariness and vexation. For those who had seen me made such wonderful reports that the people were ready to break down the doors to come in.

Finding how profitable I was, my master decided to take me to the metropolis. And so, having made my box more comfortable for a longer journey, he and Glumdalclitch set out with me for Lorbrulgrud, or the Pride of the Universe, three thousand miles away. Arriving there, my master hired a large room on the principal street of the city, not far from the royal palace, and showed me ten times a day. The fame of me spread far and wide, for during the journey I had learned to speak the language fairly well, and understood every word I heard. Indeed, we had not been long in the city when a gentleman usher came from the palace, commanding my master to take me there immediately for the diversion of the Queen and her Ladies.

Her Majesty was beyond measure delighted with me. I fell on my knees, and begged the honor of kissing her imperial foot. But she ordered me to be set on a table, and held out her little finger toward me, which I embraced in both my arms, putting the tip of it with the utmost respect to my lips. She asked whether I would be content to live at Court. I bowed down to the table, and answered that I should be proud to devote my life to her Majesty’s service. She then asked the farmer if he were willing to sell me at a good price. He said he would part with me for a thousand pieces of gold, which were ordered for him on the spot.

One request only I made of the Queen: that Glumdalclitch, who had always tended me with so much kindness, might continue to be my nurse and instructor. Her Majesty agreed, and easily got the farmer’s consent, who was glad enough to have his daughter preferred at Court. As for the poor girl herself, she was not able to hide her joy.

The Queen commanded her own cabinet-maker to make a box that might serve me as a bedroom, after the model that Glumdalclitch and I should agree upon. This man, who was most ingenious, in three weeks finished for me a wooden room, sixteen feet square and twelve high, with windows, a door, and two closets. The board that made the ceiling lifted up on hinges so that Glumdalclitch could take out my bed every day to air, and let it down at night, locking up the roof over me. A skilful workman, who was famous for little curiosities, made me two tables and two chairs of a substance not unlike ivory. The room was quilted on all sides, as well as the floor and the ceiling, so that no harm might come to me if my box were carelessly carried, or jolted about in a coach.

The Queen likewise ordered the thinnest silks that could be gotten to make me new clothes. But even these were thicker than blankets, and very much in my way till I was used to them.

So fond of my company did the Queen become that she could not dine without me. I had a table placed on that at which she ate, just at her left elbow. Glumdalclitch stood on a stool nearby, to assist and take care of me. I had an entire set of silver dishes, which in proportion to the Queen’s were not much bigger than those of a doll’s house. For her Majesty’s knives were twice as long as a scythe, set straight upon the handle, and her spoons, forks, and plates were all on the same scale. I remember the first time I ever saw a dinner-party at Court, when a dozen of these enormous knives and forks were being plied at once, I thought I had never seen so terrible a sight.

But after living among the giants several months, my first horror at their huge size so far wore off that I could not help smiling at myself when the Queen used to place me on her hand before a mirror in which both our figures were reflected together. The contrast was so ridiculous that I really began to think I must have dwindled far below my usual size.

But nothing mortified me so much as the Queen’s dwarf, who was the smallest ever known in the country, being hardly thirty feet high. Seeing at last a creature so far beneath him, he became insolent, and never failed to make some smart remark about my littleness. My only revenge was to call him brother and challenge him to wrestle, which made him not a little angry. One day, at dinner, he became so nettled that raising himself up on the frame of the Queen’s chair, he picked me up by the middle and let me drop into a large silver bowl of cream, and then ran away as fast as he could. I fell in over my head, and if I had not been a good swimmer, I believe I should have been drowned. For Glumdalclitch was at the other end of the room, and the Queen was too frightened to help me. However, my little nurse ran to my relief, and took me out, after I had swallowed more than a quart of cream. I was put to bed, but I was not hurt, except for my clothes, which were ruined.

Indeed, I should have lived happily enough in Brobdingnag (for that is the name of the giants’ country), if my littleness had not made me continually the victim of the most absurd accidents. I remember one morning Glumdalclitch set me in my box on a window-sill to give me the air. I opened my windows and sat down at my table to eat a piece of sweet-cake for breakfast, when twenty wasps as big as partridges came flying into the room, droning louder than so many bag-pipes. Some of them seized my cake and carried it piecemeal away. Others flew about my head, deafening me with their noise, until I was afraid I should be stung to death. However, I had the courage to draw my sword, and attack them in the air. Four of them I killed, but the rest got away, and I shut my windows in a hurry.

Another day Glumdalclitch let me walk about by myself on a smooth grass-plot in the garden, when there suddenly fell such a violent shower of hail that I was struck to the ground. And when I was down, the hail-stones, which were as big as tennis-balls, gave me such cruel bangs that I could scarcely creep to the shelter of a primrose. As it was, I was so bruised from head to foot that I could not go out for ten days.

But a more dangerous accident happened to me in the same garden when my little nurse had left me for a few minutes alone. While she was away, a small white spaniel belonging to one of the gardeners, ranged by the place where I lay. The dog, following the scent, came directly up, and took me in his mouth. Wagging his tail, he ran straight to his master, and set me gently on the ground. Luckily, he had been so well taught, that I was carried between his teeth without the least hurt. But the poor gardener, who knew me well, was in a terrible fright. He took me up tenderly in both his hands, and asked me how I did; but I was so amazed and out of breath that I could not speak a word. In a few minutes, however, I came to myself, and he carried me safely to my little nurse.

The longer I stayed in Brobdingnag the fewer accidents I had, as I gradually adapted myself to the huge size of everything about me. After a while, in fact, I even contrived a way so that I could read the giants’ books, although they were several times as big as I was. The book I wished to read was opened and put leaning against the wall, and in front of it, a kind of step-ladder, which the Queen’s carpenter had made for me, twenty-five feet high, and fifty wide. Mounting to the upper step of the ladder, I began reading at the top of the page, walking along to the right till I got to the end of the line. So I went, back and forth, till I had got a little below the level of my eyes. Then I descended gradually, going on in the same way to the bottom; after which I mounted again, and began the other page in the same manner. As for turning the leaf, that I could easily do with both hands, for it was as thick and stiff as pasteboard, and even in the largest books not more than twenty feet long.

But the Queen, who was always thinking up ways to amuse me, gave me the best pastime of all. She asked me one day whether I knew how to sail or row. I told her that I understood both very well, but I did not see how I could do either in her country, where the smallest rowboat is as big as a man-of-war among us. For even if I had a boat small enough for me to manage, it could never live in any of the giants’ rivers. But the Queen only smiled and said that if her carpenter could make me a boat, she would provide a place for me to sail in. So, in ten days I had a pleasure boat, complete with all its tackling, big enough to hold eight Englishmen. And in an outer room of the palace the Queen had ordered built along the wall a wooden trough, three hundred feet long, and eight deep, which two servants could fill with water in half-an-hour.

Here I often used to row for my own pleasure, as well as that of the Queen and her ladies. Sometimes I would put up my sail, and then I had only to steer while the ladies gave me a breeze with their fans. And when they were tired, some of the pages would blow my sail forward, while I showed my skill by steering starboard or larboard as I pleased. When I was through, Glumdalclitch always carried my boat back into her closet and hung it on a nail to dry.

One day a servant who was filling my trough, let a huge frog slip out of his pail. The beast lay concealed till I was put into my boat, when, seeing a resting-place, he climbed up and made it lean so much on one side, that I was forced to balance it with all my weight on the other to keep it from overturning. When the frog had got in, he hopped at once half the length of the boat, and then over my head, rubbing against me with his slimy body. The hugeness of his features made him seem the most deformed animal imaginable. However, I asked Glumdalclitch to let me deal with him alone. I banged him awhile with one of my oars, and finally forced him to leap out of the boat.

But even though I was the favorite of a great Queen and the delight of a whole Court, I could not help sometimes wishing to be in a country where I need not live in fear of being stepped on like a toad or a young puppy. But my escape came sooner than I expected, and in a most curious way.

Besides the large box in which I was usually carried, the Queen had a smaller one made for me, about twelve feet square, for convenience in traveling. On top was a great ring, by which one of the giants could carry the box in his hand. And on one side were two iron loops, through which a person carrying me on horseback could run a leather belt and buckle it around his waist. The other sides had windows, latticed with iron wire to prevent accidents. Inside, I had a hammock swung from the ceiling, and a small hole cut in the roof just above it to give me air in hot weather. There were, besides, two chairs screwed to the floor so that they could not be tossed about by the motion of the horse or coach.

It was in this traveling-box that I made my last trip in the giants’ country. One spring I was carried in it to spend a few days at the seashore along with the Queen and Glumdalclitch. My poor little nurse and I were tired by the journey. I had only a little cold, but Glumdalclitch was sick in bed. I longed to see the ocean, and asked leave to have one of the pages carry me along beside the sea. I shall never forget how unwillingly Glumdalclitch consented, bursting into a flood of tears, as if she had a foreboding of what was to happen.

The page took me out in my box, and walked with me on the rocks along the shore. Feeling slightly ill, I ordered him to set me down so that I could take a nap in my hammock. I got in, and the boy shut the window to keep out the cold. For some time I lay and watched him out the window, as he searched about among the rocks for birds’ eggs. But after a while he went out of my sight altogether, and feeling more and more drowsy, I fell asleep.

There was a sudden, violent pull on the ring of my box, and I awoke with a start. I felt my room raised high in the air, and then carried forward at a terrific speed. The first jolt almost shook me out of my hammock, but afterward the motion was easy enough. I called out several times as loud as I could, but all in vain. I looked out my windows, but could see nothing but clouds and sky. I listened, and made out a noise over my head like the flapping of wings. Then for the first time I realized what had happened. Some eagle had got the ring of my box in his beak. Soon, no doubt, he meant to let it fall on a rock like a turtle in a shell, and pick out my body to devour it.

Suddenly, the great wings above me began to beat faster, and my box was tossed up and down like a swinging sign on a windy day. I heard several bangs, as I thought, given to the eagle, and then felt myself falling straight down for more than a minute, but so swiftly that I almost lost my breath. My fall was stopped by a terrible squash that sounded louder to my ears than Niagara Falls; after which, I was in the dark for another minute. Then my box began to rise so high that I could see light from the tops of the windows. I now saw that my box had fallen into the sea, and with the weight of my body, the furniture, and the broad plates of iron on the bottom, floated about five feet deep in water.

I did then, and do still, suppose that the eagle which flew away with my box, was chased by two or three others who wanted a share in the prey. In defending himself he was forced to let me drop, but the iron plates on the bottom kept the box from breaking when it struck the water. Every joint was snugly fitted, and the door shut down, like a window, which kept my room so tight that very little water came in. Nevertheless, I expected every minute to see my box dashed to pieces, or at least overturned by a wave. A break in a single pane of glass would mean immediate death, and indeed nothing could have saved the windows but the iron lattices the giants had put on the outside. I could not lift up my roof, or I should certainly have climbed out and sat on top, where I would at least have had a chance of living a few hours longer than by being shut up inside. But even if I escaped drowning for a day or two, what could I expect but a miserable death from cold and hunger?

After four hours of these wretched imaginings, I thought I heard a kind of grating noise on the side of my box where the iron loops were fixed. And soon after, I began to fancy that the box was being towed along in the sea, for now and then I felt a sort of tugging, which made the waves rise near the tops of my windows, leaving me almost in the dark. This somehow gave me a hope of escape, although I could not imagine how it could be brought about. I unscrewed one of my chairs from the floor, and having managed to screw it down again directly under the air hole in the ceiling, I mounted on it and called for help in all the languages I knew. Then, fastening my handkerchief to my walking stick, I thrust it up through the hole, and waved it several times in the air, so that if any ship were near, the sailors might see that there was some one shut up in the box.

There was no reply to my signals, although I saw plainly that my box was moving along; and in an hour or so the side where the iron loops were, struck against something hard. I feared that it was a rock, for I was being tossed about more than ever. Suddenly, I heard a noise on the roof, like the grating of a cable passing through the ring, and I felt myself being hoisted up at least three feet higher than I was before. At that, I waved my stick and handkerchief again, and called for help till I was hoarse. In return I heard a great shout repeated three times. There was a trampling over my head, and a voice calling in English to ask if there was anybody below. I answered that I was an Englishman, and begged to be rescued from the prison I was in. The voice replied that I was safe, for my box was fastened to their ship, and the carpenter would come immediately to saw a hole in the roof large enough to pull me out. I said that was needless, for one of the crew had only to put his finger in the ring and take the box out of the sea into the ship. On hearing me talk so wildly some of the crew thought I was crazy, and others laughed, for indeed it never occurred to me that now I was among people of my own height and strength. The carpenter came, and in a few minutes sawed an opening about four feet square, then let down a small ladder, which I mounted, and from there took me to the ship.

The sailors crowded about me, asking me a thousand questions, but I was all in a daze at the sight of so many pigmies. For my eyes had been so long accustomed to the giants that I could not believe these were ordinary-sized Englishmen. However, the captain, seeing that I was about to faint from weariness and amazement, took me into his own cabin, and put me upon his own bed, advising me to take a little rest.

I slept some hours, and when I woke up, felt much better. It was then about eight o’clock at night, and the captain entertained me most kindly at dinner. He said, that about twelve o’clock at noon, as he was looking through his glass, he spied my chest at a distance, and thought it was a sail. As his ship’s biscuit had begun to run short, he made for it, hoping to buy some. On coming nearer and finding a huge chest instead of a ship, he sent out his long-boat to find out what it was. His men came back in a terrible fright, swearing that they had seen a swimming house.

Laughing at their folly, he went himself in the boat, ordering his men to take a strong cable along with them. He rowed around me several times, saw my windows, and the great iron loops upon the other side. To one of these loops he ordered his men to fasten a cable and tow the chest along toward the ship. When it was there he told them to fasten another cable to the ring in the cover, and raise the chest up with pulleys. But all the sailors tugging together were able to lift it only three feet. It was then that they saw my stick and handkerchief waving through the hole, and decided that some unlucky man was shut up inside.

He asked me, how it was that I had come there, and I told him my story from beginning to end. And as truth always forces its way into reasonable minds, so this honest gentleman was not slow in believing me. He said he wondered at one thing very much, which was to hear me speak so loudly, and he asked whether either the King or Queen of the giants was deaf. But I explained to him, how for the two years I had lived among the giants I had been like a man on the street talking to people in a steeple far above. I told him, too, how the sailors on the ship had seemed to me the tiniest little creatures I had ever seen, and how I almost laughed when I saw his table set for dinner, with plates the size of a penny, a leg of pork hardly a mouthful, and cups not so big as nutshells.

The captain laughed heartily, and during the whole voyage we were the best of friends. With a favorable breeze all the way, we rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and so sailed safely home to the tiny shores of England.

Adapted from Jonathan Swift’s “A Voyage to Brobdingnag.”